


To Those Who Are Left Behind

by OhTigridia



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Discussion of Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Introspection, platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26203846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhTigridia/pseuds/OhTigridia
Summary: “I came here in the daytime with Winter…” Hisoka mutters. “But… I want it to know I’m not afraid of the night anymore.” He says, breath shaking. “...There’s no one else here but us…”He is right of course. All it is is an ocean like any other, and grass as regular as any meadow. Such things only have power over you if you allow them to. He squeezes tight to Hisoka’s hand, listening to the waves, and the wind in their hair.
Relationships: August & Mikage Hisoka & Utsuki Chikage, Mikage Hisoka & Utsuki Chikage
Kudos: 27





	To Those Who Are Left Behind

Chikage drives, focusing on the road ahead, while watching the way streetlights catch in droplets of rain on the windows. They appear like little gems, pushed to and thro against the windscreen. Smudged, and knocked aside as his wipers slice their shimmering. The engine hums gently, accompanying the music and it’s old taste of nostalgia. It’s a mask, a singer different to that of years ago. 

Maybe it had seemed appropriate to play these tapes, as some kind of respect to this car, or more so, to its original owner. Chikage never liked his taste in music - it was antique. Far too old for him, but he’d always secretly treasured the sound of his voice masked against it, no matter how cracked and off pitch it was. August loved music, it gave him a new breath of life as he clicked his fingers, and swished in time with it. Maybe if April was less selfish, he wouldn’t have complained so incessantly about the sound of August’s voice, but he has always been like that. He lies about the most important of things, and is often left with only the feeling of remorse.

Maybe if he played it loud enough, he could imagine it was August who’d insist it be played, teasing the younger two when they’d cover their ears. He sighs, shaking his head as his car comes to a halt at a red light.

“..Are you okay?...” Hisoka asks, his voice laced with the kind of concern Chikage hates. It makes him feel vulnerable. Small, like they were children again, who’d check on each other during missions, and at night when the pain of growing up in such a place would inevitably catch up with them. 

Chikage would rather believe he doesn’t need such reassurances anymore. He’s grown, and should handle grievances by himself. He’s worried his family far too much over the years.

So, “I’m fine.” Chikage lies. It is simpler to be blunt. Be cool and disarming as a man who never learned his lesson, and pretend to dismiss him out hand. 

It is never that easy of course, not with December. He squints an eye almost judgmentally, but chews his lip as an awkward replacement for words, before nodding and turning his face away from Chikage. He probably feels the weight of his night himself.

Some things do stay the same, even now, Chikage thinks. They never were honest with each other, and though things are slowly beginning to melt through in that area, there are still times when it is easier to pretend they cannot read each other so plainly.

They like to pretend such symptoms of grief are well hidden. It doesn’t mean that they are, they just choose not to dig it out into the open. It’s out of respect that they keep quiet, but out of unspoken trust that they can read each other anyway.

“Next left.” Hisoka makes orders, his voice quiet and nonchalant as ever, though Chikage picks up on the little traces of hesitation in his tone. A greatly telling indicator of his reluctance is held in his alertness. Normally, if they were to drive for such a period of time, he’d fall sound asleep. Tonight his eyes are wide open, watching every streetlight disappear from the passenger seat. 

His face is dyed blue by the wash of midnight light.The dimness gives him a kind of shroud, though it is not enough to hide how his hands shake as they keep tight hold to that bouquet. His mind is surely fixed on recalling how August drove that night. Probably with quiet conversation, how he’d always try and ease the tension before they became serious on missions. Chikage tries not to think of what it must be like for Hisoka, driving back to the place he watched August fall.

It is not a place Chikage has ever been to, and yet, in every way is he afraid of it. Without ever seeing that night, or that scene where he laid his life down, that cliff has scarred and heavily impacted Chikage’s life.

“Next left and straight on…” Hisoka mutters, and Chikage tries once again, to think of nothing more than the road in front of him.

—

By the time they have arrived, the heavens have stopped pouring, the sky settling into a dark blue wash. As if on an instinct, his eyes are pulled up towards the beautiful full moon. It consumes its surroundings in a hazy night time glow.

“Same as that night…” Hisoka utters, his face illuminated almost hauntingly underneath it. It’s the silver moon reflected in his eye, and how his hair sways with an innate tranquility. Something about him feels almost ghostly, and Chikage thinks maybe it is partly December that haunts these grounds. In every way has it damaged him, and torn Hisoka apart from December.

Chikage nods, his breathing uncomfortable and heavy as the weight of this place settles upon his shoulders. Even to him, the full moon carries such a weight. 

Even if he hadn’t seen that moment himself he’d spent years imagining it. Vivid images of how tragic and cruel they must have been painted under the moon’s gaze.

For himself, he remembers how it’s light had spilled upon the floor as that person had reported his death. He’d always cursed the moon. He’d cried under it’s crushing weight, mourning treason, and then how it had turned him to betray his only family.

When he looks upon December now, in this place, he can see him for who he is.

Beautiful, innocent as ever. The final, broken piece of his precious family. As he turns around to face him, something regretful murmurs that he does not deserve him, though December’s eyes piece through him, as if he could read the pages of April’s guilt.

“Let’s walk.” He says, and takes his hand without a single comment. He squeezes it tight, with an honest desperation. Neither of them feel the need to express this desire for the comfort of the other, it is a well established thing without the vulnerability that comes with airing it.

They walk slow, until the cliff edge comes nearer, and a soft breeze pushes through his hair, sending a chill down his spine. Maybe if he could believe such a thing, he could say it was August, that his spirit has come to stand with them again. 

They stop upon nearing the edge, staring in silence at the night that folds before them. It is not ugly. It is not nightmarish, as he had imagined it in dreams. In fact, the place is almost pretty, should it not be for it’s burdened ode to death. The sea sloshes below them, mixing with the wind as a demand to be heard. He peers down, trying not to picture how Hisoka’s body fell, and the image that burned into his head. 

He scrunches his toes in his shoes as he glances at the grass. There is no one here to lie upon it, gazing at the moon all alone as he dies.

“I came here in the daytime with Winter…” Hisoka mutters. “But… I want it to know I’m not afraid of the night anymore.” He says, breath shaking. “...There’s no one else here but us…”

He is right of course. All it is is an ocean like any other, and grass as regular as any meadow. Such things only have power over you if you allow them to. He squeezes tight to Hisoka’s hand, listening to the waves, and the wind in their hair.

“Over here…” Hisoka says quietly. “Shall we leave the flowers here?”

“I think so.” Chikage agrees. Together they place the flowers in the vase Hisoka once brought, noticing as a breeze catches a single petal, that floats off into the night.

“Happy birthday August…” They say together, until in some unison, their hearts finally burst, and the tears pour in awful choked sobs. 

Chikage cannot remember the last time he cried. Really cried at least.   
At first, there was only dullness, a numbed agony of revenge. The Organisation had stolen his privilege of true mourning, but here. Now. He could cry until nothing more would empty from his broken heart.  
  


Stood upon the edge of a cliff, there are two men, who weep their tears into the sea. Their only company is the wind, and a bouquet of poppies - the crimson birth flower of August. A bittersweet memorial to the departed.

In a book, left abandoned in that place, there is a page for poppies, that reads to say: _restful sleep, and peace in death._

**Author's Note:**

> The birth flowers of August are poppies and gladiolus. I went with poppies for extra angst.


End file.
